Tech-savvy shoppers left disappointed after snapping up HP laptops for £1.58

Disappointed customers will not be receiving a brand new HP laptop worth thousands of pounds for £1.58 ($2.08, €1.18). Savvy shoppers took advantage of the significant reduction over the weekend after a pricing mishap meant a HP ZBook 17 laptop – which was previously available for £2,378 – was temporarily on the market for a fraction of the price.

The computer giant was forced to take its UK store offline on 30 July to fix the error. A number of electronic devices saw their prices dramatically slashed to under £5, according to the Express.

But HP has said customers who purchased the items at a heavily reduced cost will not receive the products. "We can confirm that due to a processing error, select products were wrongly priced on our UK website over the weekend," the company said in a statement.

"This has now been corrected with related orders cancelled. We apologise sincerely to impacted customers for any inconvenience caused."

While some social media users expressed hope that they would still receive the cheap laptop, HP is entitled not to fulfil the orders, according to Citizens Advice.

"If you have a contract, the company can't usually cancel your order, even if they realise they've sold you something at the wrong price," the consumer rights group's website notes. "They'll only be able to cancel it if it was a genuine and honest mistake on their part that you should've noticed."